Mar 02, 2014

Myoelectric controlled avatar helps stop phantom limb pain

People unfortunate enough to lose an arm or a leg often feel pain in their missing limb, an unexplained condition known as phantom limb pain. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden decided to test whether they can fool the brain into believing the limb is still there and maybe stop the pain.

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They attached electrodes to the skin of the remaining arm of an amputee to read the myoelectric signals from the muscles below. Additionally, the arm was tracked in 3D using a marker so that the data could be integrated into a moving generated avatar as well as computer games. The amputee moves the arm of the avatar like he would if his own still existed, while the brain becomes reacquainted with its presence. After repeated use, and playing video games that were controlled using the same myoelectric interface, the person in the study had significant pain reduction after decades of phantom limb pain.